Social Media Insights Analyst - Worldwide

Akanksha Anu is a Social Media Insights Analyst in Market Development and Insights at IBM. She is very passionate about business in multicultural scenarios and cultural intelligence. She has been exposed to different cultures in her personal life and has carried the same exposure to her work life, travelling and presenting in different cities. She has a master's degree in Business Communication with a focus on e-Business and has moved to Romania recently following her passion of learning more about cultural intelligence in the workplace. The art of curating insights through a trough of unstructured data and finally weaving them into a story fascinates Akanksha. Public speaking and presentation skills are some of her other interests, which makes her an active participant in conferences and summits.

• Explore the Mind of Your Digital Consumer! (18 October 2018 - 10:35) / Speaker

Social Media Insights Advisor - Europe

Andreea has a solid background in understanding new markets and segments, having worked for almost 8 years on a wide range of businesses and segments (Technology, FMCG, Telecom, Finance, Pharma, Building Sector and Leisure Activities). While she has dedicated some years to marketing communication, Andreea's passion remains in market research and new technologies. Her current role at IBM as a Social Media Insights Advisor combines the two interests perfectly. She explores new ways of making sense of the large amount of online data and translate it into winning decisions for the business.

Andreea has a bachelor's degree in Marketing and a master's degree in Strategic Marketing from the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies. She is a strong advocate of online courses for growing new skills in order to benefit from the vast knowledge of the global learning environment.

• Explore the Mind of Your Digital Consumer! (18 October 2018 - 10:35) / Speaker

Senior Qualitative Researcher

A Senior Qualitative Researcher for ISRA Center, Ioana has 9 years of experience conducting qualitative research. With a background in Sociology and Anthropology, Ioana aims to mix ethnographic sensibility with macro perspectives for more comprehensive visions of consumer lifestyles and markets. Passionate about methodological experiments, which challenge the beaten paths to take research towards a more authentic dialogue with consumers.

• Electric Castle Case Study (18 October 2018 - 14:50) / Speaker

Senior Researcher

Carmen has connected the dots between consumers, market research and clients for two decades, managing some of the most challenging customized projects within Kantar TNS. There is probably no area of research or sector that escaped her professional reach, and her experience interconnected various departments and teams, locally and internationally. As she continues making connections to uncover consumer lifestyles, attitudes and behaviours, Carmen is inspired by daily insights she gains from her daughter, the utmost connected consumer.

• I Connect, They Connect, We All Connect (18 October 2018 - 12:25) / Speaker

Market Research Manager

• Introduction to Session A (18 October 2018 - 09:30) / Session chair

Cercetator Calitativ

• Introduction to Session B (18 October 2018 - 11:30) / Session chair

Account Director | Creative Development Consultant

Andra has joined the world of marketing research in 2005 as Client Service with Daedalus Consulting, after a BA in Business Administration. In the following years, she completed her education with a MSc in Strategic Marketing within the Academy of Economy Studies and an MBA with Marketing emphasis within the Romanian-Canadian MBA program organized by the Bucharest School of Management.

Within Daedalus Consulting, and later Kantar Millward Brown, Andra blended Client Service activities with a little of PR. Her research experience spans very different domains - from dairy to spirits and a bit of tobacco, from utility vehicles, banking, pharma and telecom to sweets and baby e-shops, not counting the others in between. She also occasionally writes research-based articles in marketing magazines.

Above all, Andra likes every project on which she feels that the impact of research is visible, which is what explains her soft spot for creative development studies and all things advertising.

• 7 Ways to Live Long and Prosper in the World of Digital Consumers (18 October 2018 - 10:15) / Speaker

Client Service Manager

Alina is Client Service Manager for Daedalus Online.

Alina has always been sympathetic to clients' needs and she strongly believes that online research offers countless opportunities to better understand consumer’s behaviour.

After more than 8-year experience in market analysis and business intelligence for FMCG, telecom and banking industries, she switched to a more technical level and entered online market research field.

• The Lifestyle in the Smartphone Age (18 October 2018 - 14:30) / Speaker

Online Community Manager | Senior Researcher

Ana is an enthusiastic professional, with more than 6 years experience in market research. With a background in qualitative research, she is always looking for the story behind a simple answer, with a keen eye on details. Finding herself at the edge of Y & Z generations, she has been passionate about the online environment since forever. Thus, mixing both passions for market research and online, Ana is managing the "oldest" online insights community on the Romanian market for the 4th year in a row now. Being part of the GfK Digital Consumer Insights team, she is actively involved in developing and promoting emerging and innovative methodologies like MROCs (market research online communities) or SMI (social media intelligence), with the aim to accurately investigate digital consumers in their own habitat.

• Time to be SMART in a SMART New World (18 October 2018 - 16:15) / Speaker

Strategy Planning & Insights

Lucia has been an Insights professional for over 7 years. She is currently part of the Strategy Planning & Insights Department in BAT Romania where she has continued her work of merging market development competences with consumer knowledge, previously gained in IBM and Procter & Gamble. Dedicated to a more involved client approach to research that can assure a true engagement between brand teams and consumer insights.

• Electric Castle Case Study (18 October 2018 - 14:50) / Speaker

ESOMAR Member

Guest speaker

Founder and CEO, @DigitalMR_CEO

Michalis is the founder and CEO (@DigitalMR_CEO) of London headquartered DigitalMR Ltd, a tech company in artificial intelligence for market research and customer insights. He won multiple prestigious awards and has published numerous eBooks and articles. Michalis is a thought leader on the future of market research, social media research, social listening & analytics, text & image analytics and online communities for co-creation and insights. A graduate of T.U. Berlin in aerospace engineering, he received his business training through courses at Harvard Business School and LBS and has been in marketing research consulting since 1991. He has lived and worked in numerous countries since, including Cyprus, Germany, Hungary, Poland, USA and now the UK.

• Change is the only Constant (18 October 2018 - 09:45) / Guest speaker

Managing Partner

Traian Nastase has over 13 years of experience, offering a rare research, digital and psychological expertise.

Together with Andrei Canda, he founded iSense Solutions - The Modern Consumer Company, which is one of the fastest growing market research agencies, also expanding internationally. In his PhD. thesis, Traian studies the socio-economic impact of the internet upon the consumer and marketing strategies. In his free time, he likes to write on his blog, www.traiannastase.ro, about strategies of approaching the modern consumer.

• The Modern Family (18 October 2018 - 11:45) / Speaker

ESOMAR Member

Qualitative Research Fairy

Oana Popa Rengle has a lifelong passion for qualitative research, with 19 years of experience.

In June 2004 she set up Anamnesis as the first qual-research boutique in Romania. Since 2017 she is consulting independently on qualitative research and strategic insight integration into business. Oana also speaks at international research conferences on topics related to qualitative research, innovation and storytelling.

In 2016, Oana has received the ESOMAR BEST PAPER AWARD, in the ESOMAR Qualitative Congress, in Berlin, with the paper "Finding New Stories in Old Data", available on the ESOMAR website. The paper describes an innovative methodology of mining already existing research data in a creative problem-solving process.

In addition of being a research practitioner, she is also a certified Idea Generation and Creative Problem-Solving processes facilitator, and a psychotherapist practicing Systemic Family Therapy.

• Roll the Dice or Put on the VR Headset? Why not Both? (18 October 2018 - 16:35) / Speaker

Head of Innovations

• Introduction to Session D (18 October 2018 - 16:00) / Session chair

Guest speaker

Research Fellow, Kings College London & Founder

Siamack Salari is a leading global expert in ethnographic and customer journey research, with more than 20 years' experience pioneering developments in the field.

After running in-house research units at several major international communications agencies, he created EthOS, the world's first mobile ethnographic research app, in 2009. Since then, he has continued to push the boundaries of customer journey research with the launch of Journey HQ - a breakthrough research tool that provides marketers with unaffected, genuine insight into customers' natural decision-making behaviours.

Siamack also lectures in observational research at leading universities in the UK and in France, and is a visiting fellow at King's College London's Department of Management.

Siamack's latest adventures include an unusual innovation consultancy called Springboards4, a Skype and Coffee initiative/podcast called Skoffees, and a book he might never finish.

• Nothing Ever Happens (18 October 2018 - 17:00) / Keynote speaker

ESOMAR Member

Senior Vice President

Alina Serbanica is Senior Vice President at Ipsos, leading the worldwide Total Operations Data Privacy inside the company. After many years of being responsible for the online respondent access' platforms & systems in Ipsos, Alina decided to take a new professional path, emerging into the amazing new data privacy and data protection initiatives around the globe, including the EU GDPR new legal frame. She has over 25 years experience in market research and her broader expertise on both online and offline, on delivering market research services and on handling operations represent her great asset for dealing with the new data privacy environment, under a very dynamic pace technology, big data, social media and passive data collection have nowadays. Alina graduated The University of Economic Studies, Bucharest and has a PhD in Marketing - Market Research specialization. Since 2010 she is the current ESOMAR Representative in Romania and she is co-founder member of the Romanian Society for Marketing Research and Opinion Polls (SORMA), currently the President of SORMA.

• Opening and setting up the scene (18 October 2018 - 09:00) / Speaker
• Introduction to the Keynote speaker (18 October 2018 - 16:55) / Speaker
• Closing and goodbye (18 October 2018 - 17:45) / Speaker

ESOMAR Member

General Manager

Ioan is General Manager for Mercury Research, a leading full-service research agency. His research expertise is complemented by advertising experience and academic work. Ioan holds a PhD in sociology from University of Bucharest, and specializations in political studies and business management from University of Texas, ASEBUS and University of Washington. He teaches courses on advanced analysis methods, market research and marketing.

• Addressing Different Generations in Social Media (18 October 2018 - 12:05) / Speaker

Head of Insights

Head of Insights within Ursus Breweries. Cristiana has a rich research background earned across a range of industries working on agency and client side. Within the last years focused around beer, leading a team of professionals in extracting and using the smartest insights to answer the toughest business questions.

• Market Research Online Community (18 October 2018 - 15:10) / Speaker